By Jordan Skopp

I first learned about MLB Together while watching an MLB playoff game in October 2026. The playoffs are supposed to be a time when people come together, when families and friends gather around the television and share the excitement of baseball. I’m watching with a sense of contradiction – I’m conflicted about the ongoing safety crisis due to the hard hit balls and bats that strike fans, but I love the game.

Then I see MLB Together, Major League Baseball’s social responsibility platform, celebrating philanthropy, community engagement, volunteerism and charitable partnerships. MLB… really? Who are they kidding?

I’m all for helping young people, supporting veterans, funding cancer research and contributing to communities. Those are worthy causes. But there is something terribly wrong when a multibillion-dollar sports industry is busy congratulating itself on its generosity while Rome is burning in its own home. And that home is inside and outside our baseball stadiums and ballparks.

MLB Together presents a picture of baseball as a force for social good, in areas like youth empowerment and inclusion, domestic and physical safety, health research, disaster relief, and environmental sustainability. It promotes partnerships with organizations that do important work. It gives millions and millions of dollars to philanthropic initiatives.

But where is that same sense of urgency when children are being taken to emergency rooms across the country after being struck by foul balls and bats?

I’ve spent more than seven years investigating this continuing problem: fans getting hurt. Serious incidents are still happening in 2026. The team I root for, the NY Mets, is no stranger to this safety crisis. At the end of this season, I saw a dad carrying his daughter over his shoulder off to the emergency room.

I’ve spoken with injured fans and their families, players, doctors and people who know the game from the inside. The evidence is overwhelming that fans face serious foreseeable risks. Some injuries have turned out catastrophic and changed lives forever. Tragically, some have ended lives.

The contradiction is impossible to ignore. MLB is deflecting attention from its responsibility to protect spectators by giving millions through MLB Together and presenting itself as a philanthropic leader. These charitable initiatives may genuinely benefit the communities and organizations receiving the money. I don't question that. But I’m not naive: this philanthropic work also benefits the reputation of the people and the institutions behind it. The billionaires who own the clubs. When the same baseball establishment that promotes these causes leaves fans exposed to preventable injuries, we have to ask what kind of priorities are being served.

Think about the message. MLB wants us to believe that it cares about children, families and physical safety. Yet fans continue to be injured by foul balls and bats inside and outside stadiums and ballparks across the country.

Why is protecting fans not treated as a central responsibility of baseball? Why does the league have the resources to build a philanthropy brand, but not the resolve to ensure that every professional establishment provides the most adequate protection?

I know what it means to love baseball. I grew up loving it. I still love it. That's exactly why I can’t look away. The game belongs to its fans, not just to the people who profit from it. And when a child is seriously injured, no charitable campaign can make that contradiction disappear.

MLB Together could mean something more than a polished public relations campaign. It could mean taking responsibility for the safety of the fans. But until then, it is a troubling symbol of baseball's priorities: millions for philanthropy, while the crisis in its own backyard continues.